UHD growth and fears

We are currently seeing a rush into 4K products despite minimal availability of content.

Furthermore, according to Paul Gray, director of European research, Display Search, there is no consistent message for consumers. Providing a market overview in conference session on UHD, he said that China accounted for 80% of 4K shipments in 2013, and that there were more shipments in Q2 2014 than in the whole of last year.

At this stage, China’s share fell to 61%. Gray estimated 15 million 4K products would be sold in China alone this year and expressed fears about who may ultimately be the guardian of quality of such products.

The danger was that we could ultimately end up with Mega pixel marketing. Meanwhile, Brian Markwalter, senior VP, consumer research, CEA, CES, said that demand for 4K products is growing steadily in the US.

Least year’s sales of 77,000 are expected to grow ten-fold to 800,000 this year.

By 2018, the figure will amount to 13 million. One of the main problems identified in the session was the confusion over definitions of UHD.